Strange Marketing Campaigns

[captainsblog]

Today is Eleanor's third evaluation concerning her cataracts. The first time, I dropped her off. Monday, I came first thing and stayed. There was a book atop the coat rack:

Looked interesting. Wonder who left it.

Some guy named On Purpose, it turned out:

Interesting marketing idea- donating books in high-traffic waiting areas. Except for two things: the average patient age in here is something like 73 1/2, and many of them are close to, if not beyond, being legally blind.

Still, I was here and it started cool- a near-future dystopian tale of a reality show set on Mars- so I got through the first few pages before Eleanor was done. She even ran back for a lost glove and started to bring it back to me before I waved her off. I determined there was no library copy, but there was a free .epub of it on a reputable looking site, so I downloaded it.

Well, not quite it-it. More of a beta draft, beginning totally differently (print page one showed up, more or less, about 20 e-pages in), and there more than a few typos. But hey- (a), free, and (b), I edit betas, and always read them through first anyway, so why not?

Which got us back to the same office today- and the paperback still on the shelf. So now I've resumed the tighter, published version where I (sort of) left off in the e-book, only to switch back again later once I'm back on the tablet.

It's not bad so far, but I'm not sure whether to count it as one book read or two;)

Comments

[symian.livejournal.com]

At least they used a sticker. I went to a local bookstore and bought a few used books. When I got home I discovered they had stamped the business name inside and on the edge. I was so disgusted by this that I took the books back and chastised them.